


Slip of a Cup

by StripySock



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, F/F, Femslash, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:15:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripySock/pseuds/StripySock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on this: <a href="http://makinghugospin.livejournal.com/13289.html?thread=8231913#t8231913">prompt</a> </p><p>(Female)Montparnasse has a very specific interest in Éponine Thénardier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slip of a Cup

They make a pair in the mirror Montparnasse thinks, and bites her lips again to redden and flush them, admires the effect against the pallor of her skin. Next, she pouts her full lower lip a little, and then squirms to adjust the fit of her corset against her skin and gazes with satisfaction at the result. She is beautiful, she agrees with her reflection and a laugh fights its way to her lips.   
  
  
Eponine beside her looks a little lost, a little afraid as though being confronted with herself in the glass is alien, and Montparnasse snaps, "close your mouth." Eponine obediently closes it, but though her teeth can no longer be seen, the stark bones of her skull stretch through the skin and Montparnasse scarcely knows how she can bear to be seen with Eponine, if being in the same room counts. There are traces of beauty left in that thin ruined face still, if she weren't so dirty, so unkempt and uncared for, there might be vestiges of good looks. Side by side though, Eponine's degradation sets off Montparnasse's beauty, and the sight sends a quake down her spine, a thin thread of excitement. She can admit if only to herself that she is attracted to the coarse, to the ugly, that she has a peculiar taste for it. Once as a child, before she discovered that dead bodies can yield gold like the proverbial goose, she had practiced her butcher trade upon rats and mice, and returned fascinated day after day to see the results change in mysterious ways. Something of that lingers still when she sees Eponine, the same not-unpleasant fascination.   
  
  
It does not harm matters that there is fire still in Eponine, deep and buried, a little insolence to the glance, a hauteur to the lip learnt in better times perhaps, that her feet are narrow and small even in her old man's shoes, her ankles well turned and that when she looks upwards through her lashes, then a man might forget for a second all the flaws of her face and figure, and be tempted to disgrace himself with her, to soil a coat with the touch of her skin. Montparnasse is not a man though sometimes she might be mistaken for one, fastidious as any dandy in frockcoat and trousers, in boots that reflected her own pretty face, a necessary disguise in the night and one she relishes. She has led more than one man into darkness, who thought he'd enticed a pretty youth into sin, and then when their hand met empty space, swallowed their dying gasp as she slid a knife in between their ribs. She is not a man and she will not forget what Eponine is for the sake of a pair of eyes stark and beautiful in that ghastly face. Why would she when that is half the fun of it?  
  
  
Eponine turns away as though she declines to see her own face reflected back at her, a trace of rebellion flickering across her countenance. She pulls at the filthy sleeves of the old wrap thrown around her, and eyes Montparnasse with a frank, disarming gaze. They have spoken before, Eponine runs messages for the sake of her father, Montparnasse has done her a good turn a time or two, a tossed coin, a kiss, a kind word for the sake of watching her scramble for them, but this is different and Eponine knows that. She is like a gutter bird, grey and bedraggled, alertness in every inch of her frame as she waits.  
  
  
Montparnasse crosses with a firm stride to the cupboard where she keeps the wine and pours a little into two cups. She avoids drinking herself, careful of her complexion but a splash of wine has never harmed a soul, and Eponine holds her own cup with care as though she too does not often drink, though more because water is free and wine is not. "Drink," she says and matches example to her words. Eponine mimics her, sips at the wine, a sudden noisy gulp and then a faint dull red flush as though in the midst of her depravity she regrets the loss of her manners.   
  
  
"I know what you want," Eponine suddenly says, bold as brass over the top of her cup, as though she dares to presume to know anything about Montparnasse, and the gutterbird watches her with eyes no longer wary, and before Montparnasse can dash the cup from her lips and extract fear from her body, she continues. "It's not so bad. I want it too," and the idea of Eponine understanding what Montparnasse wants provokes laughter not rage.

 

Then with all the bizarre insolent cheek of her kind, Eponine sidles closer, disquiet replaced with a knowingness that renders her face odd. Montparnasse admires the angles, the sly tilt of the mouth for a long second. "You know me?" Montparnasse whispers, and sees herself shape the words in the mirror, is distracted for an instant by the curve of her jaw as she forms the words. She is vain perhaps but for good reason she thinks. Then she switches her gaze back to Eponine, and drags her eyes down that scanty form, the body shaped by hard rough living because the other girl it seemed had not the wits nor the will to drag a living from the teeth of life. Or perhaps like her impudent brother she was seized with the spirit that Montparnasse had observed sometimes flourished in the most unlikely of places, a disposition to decency that even the worst impulses could not entirely overcome. "Strip," she orders, watches for the blush to appear again on that sallow cheek, believes that Eponine will wrap her shredded dignity around her a little more and disappear.  
  
  
She neither blushes nor turns tail to run, instead she raises her fingers to the rough clasp of the hideous garment she wears and lets it fall to the floor. Beneath she wears the most ragged of chemises, the dirtiest of petticoats and they cover a body thin, stretched it seemed beyond its endurance and yet tough and hardy for all that. With no shyness she strips her petticoat from herself, and sets her hands to the chemise before Montparnasse bids her stop. There's no shame on her face, and not much give in her demeanour, she is a puzzle in herself and Montparnasse reasseses her a little. Eponine knows what she wants it seems.  
  
  
Montparnasse directs her to a bed hidden behind a meagre curtain of old brocade and still in her chemise Eponine does as she is bid, and sits gingerly on the pallet as though thin as it is (Montparnasse has never seen the need for spending money on furniture that could be better spent on clothing, after all only one can be seen by the rest of the world) it is still more than she expects. Montparnasse spends a moment pouring the day's water from the jug into the bowl and then dipping a cloth into it she gestures at Eponine. "Clean yourself before you dirty the sheets," she instructs, injecting a cruel tinge to her words for the fun of the flinch, and this time Eponine flushes, picks it up with nerveless hands and washes herself as best as she can, hitches up her chemise to reveal the slender curve of her bottom and the leanness of her thighs until the chemise clings to her with dampness.   
  
  
Montparnasse watches her coolly, conceals the sharpness of breath that overcomes her for a second at the sight of Eponine's bowed head, the vulnerable sight of the nape of her neck, her hair coiled on her head in a makeshift style where usually it tumbles about her face. She uses her time well, wriggles out of the blue dress that so darkens her eyes and enhances the colour of her skin, and with nimble fingers she unlaces herself from the constriction of the corset which does little but enhance her natural shape and yet cannot be done without, admires the firm swell of her body, glories in the sight of herself, still in her chemise- she will not be naked yet, not alone. Eponine finishes her toilette and turns with squared shoulders and open eyes to return to the bed.  
  
  
Idly Montparnasse wonders why Eponine had chosen her for these explorations of hers but concludes that it must be that her proclivities and appetites are known or at least guessed at by those who see her men's clothing and the grisettes left in her wake, drawn in by the man, seduced by the woman. Eponine is not the first nor will she be the last to knock on Montparnasse's door and look at her this way. She smiles, sharp-teethed and wide, a shark's grin she thinks and Eponine draws closer, helplessly fascinated it seems, kneels on the bed as though unsure, although Montparnasse would bet a sou to a five franc piece that Eponine is not a virgin, not untouched in any way.   
  
  
With a firm hand she slides her fingers around that stubborn jaw, kisses the livid lips harshly, digs her fingers into Eponine's cheeks pinching the soft flesh until Eponine gasped against her mouth. Did Eponine imagine tenderness, she wonders? Did she look at red lips and silken hands and in some impossible naivety not understand that they're maintained by blood? When Eponine presses her teeth against Montparnasse's lip, Montparnasse adjusts her thinking, there is no innocence in this kiss, little hesitation and Eponine's fingers are digging into the skin of her back, through linen, indenting deep as though she wants to crush her as close as she can get. Montparnasse seizes back control lost for a second in surprise, draws Eponine's lip against hers, mouths the unexpected softness of it that could not be guessed if you went by sight, sweeps her tongue against her teeth, feels the unexpected shudder against her body as though Eponine is surprised by that. She's probably never been kissed properly, no matter how she looks at men, no matter how she longs for a gentle touch, not with that hideous mixture of innocence and oldwomanhood.   
  
  
She is dampish under that rag she calls a chemise and Montparnasse breaks away, directs her to discard it at once, watches as Eponine reveals herself, hollow-chested, the shape of a woman but too thin for fashionable curves, bones stark under her skin, and Montparnasse can't resist touching, smoothing her hands over that exposed skin, those narrow hips, digging her fingers into the slight curve of her thighs, before she rubs a hand between her legs against her cunt, can't prevent a look of surprise flitting over her face at how wet Eponine is already from no more than a kiss and a touch. She wonders if, the whole time Eponine had stood and watched them in the mirror, washed herself in Montparnasse's water, she'd been wet and ready between her legs and the thought sends something hot through her veins, brings blood to the surface of her face. She doesn't let that show at least, just rubs a practiced finger over Eponine's folds, trails her fingers up the curve of Eponine's thigh over her stomach, to her breasts, Eponine watching her with dark eyes. She pinches the nipple closest to her hand with two strong fingers and Eponine shivers, her mouth falling open.  
  
  
"Do you know what I want yet?" Montparnasse murmurs against that face.  
  
  
"Yes," Eponine says and her body strains closer. "You've always liked ugly things." There is a world of bitterness there and yet not so much as there could have been, and Montparnasse can't deny it. She rewards Eponine for her perspicacity, kisses her neck with more than a little hint of teeth and a warm tongue following afterwards, and Eponine who can't resist goading the bull a little further continues. "He doesn't like ugly things you know," and Montparnasse surfaces.  
  
  
"Do you always talk about other lovers when in bed with someone?" she asks, annoyed and yet a little intrigued.   
  
  
"Only when they tease," Eponine says with that customary infrequent flash of humour that always takes Montparnasse by surprise, and she surprises again, by drawing her own hands across Montparnasse's clothed body, seeking up the material, brushing against smooth skin, and Montparnasse stills for a second before she throws herself back against the pillow and hikes up the chemise without a glimmer of decency.   
  
  
"Get to work then," she says and Eponine hesitates for one second and then as though obeying her duty, slides her hands up Montparnasse's thighs, spreads them open and holds them there as she tentatively licks at the wetness between her legs. It's clear Eponine's never done anything like this before, unskilled and uncertain, she does her best but fails to satisfy, and with a flex of her knees Montparnasse shifts up the bed. "Now who is the tease," she demands, brushes her fingers against Eponine's mouth as though in rebuke, and pushes her back into the bed.  
  
  
If Eponine had been tentative, Montparnasse was sure, strong tongue against Eponine's cunt, fingers tracing the outside of her thighs, trailing the join of her limbs, until they joined her tongue in pressing against Eponine, until she bucked against Montparnasse's face and had to be held down with firm elbows until Montparnasse had wrung every shiver and moan from Eponine that she could get, her tongue pressing deep inside her for lingering seconds as her thumb brushed her clit, until Eponine seized up and thrust her hips from the bed chasing for more sensation, coming around her and with a laughter Montparnasse abandoned her for now, pressed a finger deep inside to see how Eponine felt around her oversensitive as she was, kissed her without a fear of protestation. She takes a moment to look at Eponine now, traces a finger over the dark shadows under her eyes, the stretched thin quality of her skin so different from Montparnasse's own, and Eponine's clever fingers are between Montparnasse's thighs now as though proving that though she might not be able to use her mouth, her fingers are more than adequate, and hadn't she been a pickpocket sometime?  
  
  
Montparnasse is as wet as she has ever been, two fingers inside her and Eponine's ugly-pretty face so close to her own, every line of it wrong and alien, every bit of her body a contrast, and up close like this it gives her shivers that centre in her spine and radiate outwards through her body, sparking sharp and bright, the relentless thrust of Eponine's fingers against her, combined with the sharp winged bones of Eponine's shoulders driving her closer to the edge. She digs strong hands into Eponine, and swallows the resultant cry with her mouth, relishes the way Eponine falters for long seconds and then continues. At the last her eyes droop shut no matter how much she wants to see, and her body tightens around Eponine's fingers, holds them close as she shudders and comes around them.   
  
  
Afterwards Eponine is awkward and quiet, shy again as though she doesn't know how she comes to be here, naked and sated in Montparnasse's bed, and Montparnasse does nothing to ease her discomfort. They are not friends after all, nor even lovers, just passing in the night, two sides of a coin. Over Eponine's shoulder, Montparnasse can just about catch sight of the tip of her own head in an artfully tilted mirror and she smiles to herself at the sight. Eponine has fallen and will fall further, every mark of her life written on her body. Montparnasse has survived, has even thrived and she relishes every moment of it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Roses and Porcelain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1620020) by [Miss M (missm)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missm/pseuds/Miss%20M)




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